Dycus was a hardware engineer at Oculus VR, where he worked on early prototypes of the Oculus Rift headset as well as the final consumer model that launched in 2016. He was hired in 2012 by founder Palmer Luckey directly; they were longtime friends before Dycus became the first Oculus employee.

"I am a little disappointed I won't make it to my 5 year Oculus anniversary — only 2.5 months away! Oh well," he wrote in his Facebook post.

It sounds like Dycus is leaving under amicable terms. He wrote that he's leaving for a startup that, "really sounds like something I want to do," though he doesn't explicitly say where he's going other than "to beautiful, sunny SoCal."

Dycus was part of the original crew that started Oculus VR, long before it was purchased by Facebook for $2 billion. Some of that crew remains in place at Oculus — Nate Mitchell, Michael Antonov, and Brendan Iribe (seen above) are still with the company. The company's founder and poster boy, Palmer Luckey, exited earlier this year following an anti-Clinton political donation controversy.

Founder and figurehead, Palmer Luckey, became embroiled in controversy when The Daily Beast revealed Luckey's financial support of a group that described itself as, "We've proven that s***posting is powerful and meme magic is real."

The next project from Oculus VR, an Oculus Rift that operates without the assistance of a powerful gaming PC, is currently in the works.

The Santa Cruz prototype of the Oculus Rift, in action. Facebook

It's codenamed the "Santa Cruz" prototype, and it's a bit of a step down from the experience offered on the first Oculus Rift. Instead of targeting so-called "high-end" virtual reality — the kind of VR powered by a powerful gaming PC or game console — the Santa Cruz prototype is aiming to compete with the likes of Samsung's Gear VR and Google's Daydream in the mobile VR space.

Facebook declined to comment on Dycus' departure, but confirmed he had left, and that he was the first company employee after the founders.